Submitted

Fri, Jan 10th 2014 08:50 pm

Funds
to enable continuation of center's Arts in Healthcare Program at Roswell Park
Cancer Institute

The
Center for the Arts at the University at Buffalo has received a grant of
$83,200 from Roswell Park Alliance Foundation quality of life committee. The
funds will provide four artist stipends in the center's Arts in Healthcare
Program at Roswell Park Cancer Institute, now in its sixth year.

The
program includes six professional artists in residence, who bring their
specialized art forms and skills to patients at Roswell Park. Their arts-based
activities have proven to assist patients in expressing themselves, create
opportunities for relaxation, and distract from stresses associated with
diagnosis and treatment. Visitors, families and staff also benefit greatly from
the program.

Thomas
Burrows, executive director of the Center for the Arts, stated, "The University
at Buffalo and Center for the Arts are honored to work in partnership with
Roswell Park Cancer Institute on the initiative. From the beginning, the institute
has been supportive and had understood the potential to serve the hospital
population in a uniquely positive way. We applaud their dedication to the
quality of life of patients and families."

"We
recognize that creative outlets can be very therapeutic for people battling
cancer and contribute a great deal to the welcoming and therapeutic environment
at RPCI," said Cindy Eller, executive director of the Roswell Park
Alliance Foundation. "Artists can provide a distraction, start a conversation,
and give patients and their families interesting things to see, experience or
think about. The artist-in-residence program is entirely donor funded, and it
has played a strong supporting role in patient care at Roswell Park Cancer
Institute."

The
mission of the Roswell Park Alliance Foundation is to maximize dollars
available for Roswell's most promising lifesaving research, treatment and
prevention programs, while supporting the psychosocial needs of patients and
families touched by cancer. Fundraising events and initiatives are carried out
through a partnership between committed Roswell Park Alliance volunteers and foundation
staff.

One
of the foundation's priority funding areas is quality of life programs benefiting
patients and families.Quality of life grants are determined by a
committee made up of those closest to Roswell's patients: nurses, physicians
and representatives from other patient care and support areas.

The
Arts in Healthcare initiative was established by the Center for the Arts at the
University at Buffalo in 2008 to bring the performing and visual arts into
health care settings at Women and Children's Hospital of Buffalo and Roswell
Park Cancer Institute. This is the first comprehensive program of its kind in
Western New York. Support for the program at Roswell comes from donations made
to the Roswell Park Alliance Foundation.